Remember that bit in Minority Report where Tom Cruise uses simple gestures and motions to control a big floating holographic computer screen? That was sweet. Geeks have been fawning over such a technology ever since the film came out, and Silicon Valley brainboxes have been working on it for the past decade or so, but they've yet to crack it. And that's using the technology of 2014 as a starting point: just think how crappy an approximation of it from 1989 would be. Especially one that ran not on the most sophisticated gadgets of the day, but a Nintendo Entertainment System. You know, the 8-bit console that could only just deal with Duck Hunt. Created by the deceptively Scandinavian-sounding-but-actually-American Brøderbund, the U-Force was a pair of perpendicular consumer IR sensor panels to translate the user's hand movements into controller signals. So, basically, it was supposed to work like that cool Minority Report tech, except you'd use it to play Super Mario Bros. There's nothing to hold, nothing to jump on, nothing to wear, the adverts at the time claimed. U-Force creates a power field that responds to your every command -making you the controller. It's the most amazing accessory in video game history - and it will change the way you play video games forever. Yeah, no, it absolutely didn't. It sucked.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
